UK Edition
Victoria Beckham on her new grown-up style: ‘I just can’t do heels any more’
There are any number of pieces I find myself coveting at the Victoria, Victoria Beckham preview on the last day of London Fashion Week.
The dark denim slim jeans that have been fused with felt at the hems? A clever twist on an old formula and a versatile multi-tasker for the woman who wants to look fashionably sleek rather than corporately-smart. The pinstripe shirting dress, similar to one in the current collection, but now with an added ruffle? I’d buy that for the office and as a weekend piece. The ruffle sleeved t-shirts and flared trousers (in forest green, peppermint or black)? The trousers are an excellent cut. VB herself has them in every colour and will wear them with the spongy wool, 60s inspired belted jackets (‘that’s my equivalent of a twinset”). I’d settle for the forest green, a great in-between shade that slides into the cracks of your wardrobe and goes with everything.
But isn’t Victoria, Victoria Beckham meant to be the girlish little sister to the main collection? In which case I shouldn’t be as keen as I am. The VVB collection has had to grow up, Beckham tells me. “She’s having fun, but not too much, fun. She needs clothes for work as well as for evening,” she says.
This is the way of the (fashion) world: the constant tilt at youthfulness, even though many customers are older, the same age, perhaps, as 41-year-old Beckham whose ever-evolving closet is a perpetual diversion for millions of women and increasingly, a template for how to look stylish at work. “I think people saw the real me when I came out [at the end of her Victoria Beckham show in New York] in a pair of men’s trousers, a roll-neck and trainers.”
For the record (and the minutiae matters) she’s wearing mannish trousers again, plus a navy coat, one front panel of which she artfully pushes aside as she thrusts a hand in her trouser pockets. She’s nothing if not practised in what makes for a photogenic moment, which is just as well, because when I arrive at the store for our meeting, there are a cluster of photographers waiting for her outside on the pavement.
This must add complex considerations to her “dressing for work” uniform, but she insists that these days she, and her collections, “are all about making getting dressed easy. And being flattering. Take this sleeveless black dress. We worked hard to get the placing of the ruffle right. You need to be able to wear a bra with it and you don’t want a ruffle that makes you look as though you have four boobs. And you probably want it to make you look as though you have a small waist, even when the cut is oversized.”
VB – brand and woman – have loosened up, in every sense. For instance, flats are now part of her uniform. Today it’s a take on Nurse Ratchett white leather loafers. “I just can’t do heels any more. At least not when I’m working,” she says. “I travel a lot.” True. She’s just returned from half term with the children in LA after the New York show, and is off to Hong Kong for the opening of her second store there in three weeks. “Clothes have to be simple and comfortable.”
It strikes me listening to Beckham, that after what seems aeons of aping celebrities and playing to the Instagram era with fancy dress, fashion is witnessing a subtle shift towards looking as though you have a proper job and a genuinely busy life. Even dolllygarchs walk around in tailoring, with their Macbook pros within easy reach (generally inside a croc tote). Certainly there have been far more ideas on the catwalks recently that work for grown-ups. Christopher Kane’s show on Monday is a case of point, as was Victoria Beckham’s main collection, which she showed ten days ago in New York.
Will she continue to show there, despite the logistics – and the fact that Anna Wintour says she felt 'let down' by a 'risk-free' New York Fashion Week? Beckham looks surprised. “Well, she hosted a dinner for us after the show at her house and it wasn’t boring at all. In fact it was a lot of fun,” she says. “The truth is, New York works for us. We get a great slot on the schedule and it’s important for sales that we get to show early in the calendar.”
So this, it seems is how it is to be. Main line showing in New York on the catwalk, one on one personal presentations of the VVB collection in London, which is the way she started out with her main line. London may just have the better deal.